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| Copyright DC COMICS. Click to enlarge, then click again for the full impressive effect |
Everyone surely remembers the iconic SUPERMAN #233 cover by NEAL ADAMS. Above is a painting by him from 2003, and below is a model which you should be able to purchase at various comicbook-related stores. Further down is the original cover from 1971 so that you can compare the three images. Pretty impressive, eh? (I'm glad to see that he's fixed the position of the right arm, though there's something about the feet on the painting that isn't quite right. Still, very nice work, that minor detail apart.) Just thought I'd share them with you.
I'd like to draw your attention to a subtle difference between the poses rendered in the images and that of the model figure. Notice the arch of the spine in the figure? That gives me a much more dynamic feel to the pose, especially in relation to the abdomen of the torso. One of the habits that crept in from around the late 60's and early 70's was to draw Supertypes with this inflated chest and collapsed abdomen, always gives the figure a posy look, as if he's a body builder showing off his diaphragm control. I never really liked that look and it's to interesting to note the difference here because, unlike most situations, that breath control look, wouldn't be out of place but the modeller has chosen to alter the emphasis, towards a more sinuous look. I think it's a nice job and I'm not knocking Adams or those other artists who adopted the posy look, after all some of 'em, including Adams are legends, it's just that I preferred, less formal looking poses. Not necessarily more realistic though, I don't think you could call Kirby a greater proponent of realism than Adams, at least not without running into some, quite vociferous dissent.
ReplyDeleteThe model does seem to be putting slightly more effort into breaking those chains than in the illos, DSE, where the figure looks to be merely flexing his muscles. The difference might seem more than it actually is 'though, because of the angle the photo's taken from.
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